January 17, 2012

Geography of the Plains of Ig

The plains of Ig are a land far past its prime, overshadowed by the fallen empires of the past. The kingdoms of the elves, dwarfs, and humans were swept aside in eons past by unstoppable hordes of monstrous insects, scourges of chitin and claw that swept the land clean of the lights of civilization. Now the people shudder beneath thatch roofs, living in fear of the horrors that lurk in the wilderness and eking out a meager existence by the sweat of their brow.

Ig is composed of rolling grassland, descending from the foothills of the Dark Mountains to the north. The northern plains are cut by deep ravines cut by fast rivers that descend from the peaks. Copses of trees grow around these waterways, in some places so thick they blot out the light. Tiny villages dot the plains, usually no more than a dozen low thatch and unworked stone huts. These are connected by low rutted paths which bring trade and tale come summer. Farther to the south the land grows low and wet, made of up trackless marshland and fertile farmland. This wide floodplain descends to the sea.

Hamanda Jakla is as close to a center of trade as the plains get. Sitting behind half-ruined stone walls of an ancient seat of power, its districts of stone and wood rise above the squalor of the tiny hamlets that feed it. It is the locus of mercantile guilds that travel throughout the region, one of the only places with the gold and will to support a nascent upper class.

The plains are hemmed in on either side by trackless forests of Beldin and the dank swampland of And.

And that is Ig in a nutshell. Self-contained enough to host any number of adventures within, and diverse enough to make them interesting. I'm currently working on a hexmap of the area, but that's taking time as the artist in my head refuses to use Hexographer.